Yep, that’s right: it’s the famous Costco college essay that got Brittany Stinson into five Ivy League schools. Said schools include Columbia, Yale, UPenn, Cornell, and Dartmouth.

Now, this application essay was considered one of the “quintessential college essays” that every student was expected to strive for. It had a lot of positive attributes to it, notably its creativity, that made the college essay so strong in the application.

But here’s the thing: there are also mistakes in this essay that future applicants should be wary of.

It’s okay though. Here at PenningPapers, we try not to be a Negative Nancy. In fact, we just want to provide the most value from our admissions advice so that our clients and readers get the most useful analysis.

It just so happens that the Costco College essay covers a wide range of topics that could be useful for our readers to know.

We want our readers to be well-equipped to face their own college applications; thusly so, we have compiled a list of both the primary positive and negative attributes of the Costco college essay.

The Costco College Essay

Prompt 1: Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.

Managing to break free from my mother’s grasp, I charged. With arms flailing and chubby legs fluttering beneath me, I was the ferocious two­ year old rampaging through Costco on a Saturday morning. My mother’s eyes widened in horror as I jettisoned my churro; the cinnamon­sugar rocket gracefully sliced its way through the air while I continued my spree. I sprinted through the aisles, looking up in awe at the massive bulk products that towered over me. Overcome with wonder, I wanted to touch and taste, to stick my head into industrial­sized freezers, to explore every crevice. I was a conquistador, but rather than searching the land for El Dorado, I scoured aisles for free samples. Before inevitably being whisked away into a shopping cart, I scaled a mountain of plush toys and surveyed the expanse that lay before me: the kingdom of Costco.

Notorious for its oversized portions and dollar­fifty hot dog combo, Costco is the apex of consumerism. From the days spent being toted around in a shopping cart to when I was finally tall enough to reach lofty sample trays, Costco has endured a steady presence throughout my life. As a veteran Costco shopper, I navigate the aisles of foodstuffs, thrusting the majority of my weight upon a generously filled shopping cart whose enormity juxtaposes my small frame. Over time, I’ve developed a habit of observing fellow patrons tote their carts piled with frozen burritos, cheese puffs, tubs of ice cream, and weight­loss supplements. Perusing the aisles gave me time to ponder. Who needs three pounds of sour cream? Was cultured yogurt any more well­mannered than its uncultured counterpart? Costco gave birth to my unfettered curiosity.

While enjoying an obligatory hot dog, I did not find myself thinking about the ‘all beef’ goodness that Costco boasted. I instead considered finitudes and infinitudes, unimagined uses for tubs of sour cream, the projectile motion of said tub when launched from an eighty foot shelf or maybe when pushed from a speedy cart by a scrawny seventeen year old. I contemplated the philosophical: If there exists a thirty­three ounce jar of Nutella, do we really have free will? I experienced a harsh physics lesson while observing a shopper who had no evident familiarity of inertia’s workings. With a cart filled to overflowing, she made her way towards the sloped exit, continuing to push and push while steadily losing control until the cart escaped her and went crashing into a concrete column, 52″ plasma screen TV and all. Purchasing the yuletide hickory smoked ham inevitably led to a conversation between my father and me about Andrew Jackson’s controversiality. There was no questioning Old Hickory’s dedication; he was steadfast in his beliefs and pursuits – qualities I am compelled to admire, yet his morals were crooked. We both found the ham to be more likeable-and tender.

I adopted my exploratory skills, fine tuned by Costco, towards my intellectual endeavors. Just as I sampled buffalo­chicken dip or chocolate truffles, I probed the realms of history, dance and biology, all in pursuit of the ideal cart-one overflowing with theoretical situations and notions both silly and serious. I sampled calculus, cross­country running, scientific research, all of which are now household favorites. With cart in hand, I do what scares me; I absorb the warehouse that is the world. Whether it be through attempting aerial yoga, learning how to chart blackbody radiation using astronomical software, or dancing in front of hundreds of people, I am compelled to try any activity that interests me in the slightest.

My intense desire to know, to explore beyond the bounds of rational thought; this is what defines me. Costco fuels my insatiability and cultivates curiosity within me at a cellular level. Encoded to immerse myself in the unknown, I find it difficult to complacently accept the “what”; I want to hunt for the “whys” and dissect the “hows”. In essence, I subsist on discovery.

The Costco College Essay: Critique

Pros:

Unique Topic: This seems to be an underrated one. There are plenty of essays about serving as a camp counselor, and plenty more about playing the violin. The value of a unique topic like Costco is that it provides admissions officers with something different to read from the hundreds of thousands of similar essays. Having a unique topic in your college essay will make admissions officers love your story more than others who have less special ones.

Interesting Narrative: a strong narrative is arguably one of the most vital parts of the college admissions process. If you can capture the attention of the admissions officers with your words, you can put yourself in a much more positive light than the rest of the competition. Take this one for example: “. I contemplated the philosophical: If there exists a thirty­three ounce jar of Nutella, do we really have free will?”

Now, we do want to clarify that writing this well correctly and effectively so that the admissions officers DON’T find your essay ostentatious and overbearing is hard. There is a fine line between having capturing language and having pretentious language.

We recommend that if you feel uncomfortable with writing in this style but would still like to beat out the rest of the competition in the admissions pool, you should speak to our admissions experts to talk about how you can get your college essay edited.

Cons:

Outdated subject: Whichever subject you talk about, make sure that it is not too far from your current year. The farther away your experience is from high school, the more irrelevant it becomes. It is very hard for people to believe that a child’s characteristics have transferred to their adult selves.

More importantly, admissions officers would like to know more about how you changed in the current time; there is little use in knowing what positive changes or character traits you’ve had in the past.

Cliché “thirst for knowledge”: There’s not much else to say about this section other than the fact that writing that you have a “thirst for knowledge” has been overdone. There are plenty of students who write that they are curious and are always learning. Unfortunately, this has become so saturated that it is sometimes even mocked in not just the admissions process but in job applications too. Even business gurus have been mocked for it: take Tai Lopez and his regrettable “knowledge” video. 

Corny ending: Here at Penningpapers, the intro paragraph is the most important paragraph of all, but that doesn’t mean the ending paragraph should be neglected. A bad ending paragraph will still leave a bad taste in the admissions officer’s mouth. So, what’s wrong with the ending? Well, it’s the mention of the “whys” “hows” and the “in essence.” These are famous lines that parallel Nietzsche’s quote “He who has a why can bear any how”. The “whys” and “hows” have been overplayed, and in STEM related college essays, we’ve found that the words “in essense” more times than we could count. The essay in all wasn’t particularly bad, but hearing the last paragraph made us want to puke.

In short, Brittany Stinson’s Costco college essay wasn’t perfect, but it was certainly a piece that stood out amongst the rest of the admissions essays. Perhaps you, dear reader, would like to make your admissions essay perfect. Perhaps you would like to make it as good as possible to remove any doubt of college acceptance, or even make up for poor scores. Perhaps it is too difficult to compete in the admissions process because your dream school is far too prestigious and competitive.

For that, we recommend you shoot us a call or send us a message so we can take a look at your application because remember: even the best application essays have critical flaws without editing!